[yso191]

So I am planning my second brew, another 5 gallon batch.  I brew in keggles, so I have lots of mash tun room.  Is there any reason why I can't just put ALL the water in for the whole mash time, then just drain it out for full boil volume?

If I can, are there any adjustments that should be made - like increasing the grain bill a certain percentage?

Steve

[blatz]

yeah - no reason not to - your efficiency will likely drop to about 50-55%, (but that will be dependent on your system) and of course along with the drop in efficiency you will have to raise the malt bill.

I've tried it before with good results - most people do not do a 'no sparge' due to either lack of mash tun capacity or because of the added cost, but if you have the former and don't mind the latter, why not? 

[a10t2]

One of the best things about no-sparging (and batch-sparging) is that it's really easy to predict your efficiency, and as long as your conversion efficiency is good you can be sure you'll hit the target. For a no-sparge beer, efficiency is just:

E = 0.93(V/(V + 0.12W))

Where V is the pre-boil volume in gallons and W is the grist weight in pounds. The 0.93 is a fudge factor to account for the wort expansion due to dissolved extract. It'll be off by a couple percent at very high and low gravities. Efficiency for any reasonable beer (1.035-1.090) will be in the 55-75% range.

[tom]

+1.  Efficiency for a regular strength beer will only be about ~5% less than your usual.  Big beers around 1.100 will be about 50-55%.  Then you can do a batch sparge for another 5 gallons of brew.  It sure saves a lot of time too.

[coastsidemike]

+1.  Efficiency for a regular strength beer will only be about ~5% less than your usual.  Big beers around 1.100 will be about 50-55%.  Then you can do a batch sparge for another 5 gallons of brew.  It sure saves a lot of time too.

Any advice for the target temp of the sparge for how it might affect the outcome of the wort (say, sweet vs dry)?  Can one get by with measuring the sugar content of the sparge, or do you need to be tracking the ph as well?

Thanks.

[malzig]

Your efficiency will be dependent on your conversion efficiency, in addition to the grist size and volume (in other words, essentially, the gravity of the beer).  This is why some would say you should get 50% efficiency and others will say 75%.  One may be talking about a larger beer or be getting lower conversion than the other. 

I perform no-sparge on about half of my beers and 73-75% mash efficiency is typical for my system on a ~1.050 beer.

I think, if you know your usual conversion efficiency, you could use this modified version of Sean's formula to get a more accurate estimate of your mash efficiency from a no-sparge:

E = 0.93(V/(V + 0.12W))*(Conversion Efficiency)

Where V is the pre-boil volume in gallons and W is the grist weight in pounds.

[blatz]

I was speaking about overall brewhouse efficiency - I have no idea what my conversion, etc. are.

I get almost 77-78% every time for beers <1.070 or so.

When I did a partigyle, I got 55% for the first beer, which seems to correspond with what other brewers experienced.  If I was only losing 5% BHE by not sparging, hell, I would never sparge - I have a 20gal mashtun 

[morticaixavier]

I don't lose a ton of BHE when I no-sparge. maybe 63% instead of 68% (this is calculated by volume in the fermenter and I lose some to the kettle and some to the mash etc. With partigyle it's different because you aren't running off as much wort in those first runnings in relation to the size of the grist. When I no-sparge I might have 3-4 l/lb by the time I run off. this is because I often do a mash out step when no-spargeing because I want as much malty goodness as I can get and I don't want things to continue converting while the wort comes up to a boil. partigyle on the other hand I might only get 50-55% on the first runnings but my full batch BHE is usually in the 70-75% range.

[a10t2]

I think, if you know your usual conversion efficiency, you could use this modified version of Sean's formula to get a more accurate estimate of your mash efficiency from a no-sparge

I would argue that if you know your conversion efficiency is low, you should work on fixing it, rather than work around it.

[blatz]

hmm - guess I should look into this further.

but then again, I'm switching brewing systems hopefully this weekend, so I will have to relearn my efficiencies all over again...

[denny]

+1.  Efficiency for a regular strength beer will only be about ~5% less than your usual.  Big beers around 1.100 will be about 50-55%.  Then you can do a batch sparge for another 5 gallons of brew.  It sure saves a lot of time too.

Any advice for the target temp of the sparge for how it might affect the outcome of the wort (say, sweet vs dry)?  Can one get by with measuring the sugar content of the sparge, or do you need to be tracking the ph as well?

Thanks.

It won't really make any difference.  Conversion has already happened so you're just draining out the remaining sugars.  If your mash pH was good, your sparge pH probably will be good also.  I usually add some crystal before the 2nd runnings run off to increase the mouthfeel.

[erockrph]

If you're doing a full-volume no sparge with a thin mash (in the 2.5-3+ qt/lb range or so), then you really shouldn't see that big of a dip in BE. BIAB can hit 80-85% efficiency, and the only difference with no sparge is that you will lose some wort to dead space and a bit more to grain absorption.

[malzig]

I think, if you know your usual conversion efficiency, you could use this modified version of Sean's formula to get a more accurate estimate of your mash efficiency from a no-sparge

I would argue that if you know your conversion efficiency is low, you should work on fixing it, rather than work around it.

I would argue the same thing, but, from all the 75% efficiencies I see listed from sparged beers, I wouldn't count on it.  

I was speaking about overall brewhouse efficiency - I have no idea what my conversion, etc. are.

It's quite useful information to have when you want to do something like, as in this case, predict the actual gravity you will see from a No-Sparge mash.  Like Sean demonstrates, the math gets even easier once you get close to 100% conversion efficiency and can ignore that factor.

The difference between the expected 75% mash efficiency and a 55% Brewhouse Efficiency seems like it would be due to an awful lot of deadspace, but I know that many brewers systems leave a lot of wort in the kettle.  I don't usually calculate BHE, because it is not a number that I have ever found a use for other than figuring the cost of a batch.  However, sitting down and doing the calculation, it would be ~70% for a No-Sparge batch, similar to the 5% loss that Morticaixavier sees.  He is right, too, about the fact that a No-Sparge mash will give you significantly higher efficiency than a Parti-gyle mash, which may account for the differences.